Vaccinium membranaceum |
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big huckleberry, black blueberry, black huckleberry, mountain huckleberry, square-twig blueberry, tall huckleberry, thin-leaf huckleberry |
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Habit | Plants forming small to extensive clumps, rarely crown-forming, 2–30 dm, not rhizomatous; twigs of current season yellow-green or reddish green, terete to slightly angled, glabrous or hairy in lines. |
Leaf | blades usually green, broadly elliptic to ovate, 25–50 × 11–23 mm, margins sharply serrate, surfaces glandular abaxially. |
Flowers | calyx green, obscurely lobed, glabrous; corolla white, cream, yellowish pink, or bronze, globose to urceolate, 3–5 × 5–7 mm, thin, glaucous; filaments glabrous. |
Berries | shiny or dull black or deep purple, rarely red or white, 9–13 mm diam. |
Seeds | ca. 1 mm. |
2n | = 48. |
Vaccinium membranaceum |
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Phenology | Flowering late spring–early summer. |
Habitat | Coniferous woods, especially cut-over stands, talus slopes, subalpine fir forests, alpine heaths |
Elevation | 900-3500 m (3000-11500 ft) |
Distribution |
AZ; CA; CO; ID; MI; MT; OR; SD; UT; WA; WY; AB; BC; ON
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Discussion | Vaccinium membranaceum is, by far, the most widely commercially utilized western huckleberry for fruit and is harvested extensively from the wild. This species served as an especially important source of food for native peoples throughout western North America, and the dried berries were used for winter food and trade. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 8, p. 523. |
Parent taxa | Ericaceae > subfam. Vaccinioideae > Vaccinium > sect. Myrtillus |
Sibling taxa | |
Synonyms | V. coccineum, V. globulare, V. membranaceum var. rigidum |
Name authority | Douglas ex Torrey: in C. Wilkes et al., U.S. Expl. Exped. 17: 377. (1874) |
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